


The Dragon and Me

by nirejseki



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, F/M, Gen, M/M, dragon!barry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 05:06:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9584771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: Mick doesn't even like dragons all that much.Naturally, he ends up on the front page of Science as the new face of Draconic Studies and it'sall Barry's fault.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For pretzel-log1c's birthday

There are dragons, and then there are _dragons_.

The common ones everyone knows: the plodding Snarlip, the gargantuan Rockhead, the placid Bagful breeds, all commonly used in agriculture, or even their small city-pest cousins, officially called Borogroves and informally called Bigeyes. They’re all a part of what are known as _dracona minora_ , the inferior draconic breeds.

Not that they’re all that inferior. Mick’s a farm boy; their neighbors owned a Rockhead named Suzy Jenkins that could flatten a fallen tree without blinking.

But compared to _dracona draconis_ , the so-called ‘True Dragon’? 

Nothing.

True dragons are rare as hell, in part because they’re rumored to be actually sentient and the majority of them know enough about humans to stay the hell away. Rumored, of course, because very few people actually dumb enough to go after them – the scaly hides, the superpowers, the stuff of legend, really – and no one has ever brought one back _alive_.

Of course, there’s always been poachers. 

Lisa got involved in an anti-poaching crusade when she was in middle school, got really gung-ho about it. “I’m going to be on the cover of Science,” she announced. “For my work against dragon poaching.”

“Sure thing, Lise,” Len said. Mick rolled his eyes.

Mick’s never really been into politics.

Or dragons.

Or anything like that, really.

Which is, of course, why _he_ ends up being the one on the front fucking page as the new face of Draconic Studies.

Fucking dragons. 

\--

See, it’s not that Mick actually likes dragons. 

Or even really pays all that much attention to dragon issues - conservation, scientific study, or all that rot.

It's that Len is a spiteful little son of a bitch.

To be more accurate, he's a spiteful little son of a bitch that needs someone to keep him out of the trouble he's always heading into, headfirst and eyes avid.

That person, self-nominated, is Mick.

Mick doesn't even remember what this Thawne guy did to piss Lenny off, but whatever it was, it was a whopper. Len was _steamed_. 

Also, involved in a fairly public confrontation with the guy. 

Meaning, of course, that Len for all his sneakiness couldn't follow him around, and the job was thus delegated to Mick.

One of the things that Mick secretly appreciates most about Len is how his overwhelming laziness leads him to skip over the whole 'bias' stage and straight into the 'orders' stage. Anyone else would've gone and hired a sneak thief to follow Thawne around, thinking Mick was too big or too dumb to do the job. 

Len just said, sulking at the dinner table, "You'll handle it, right, Mick?"

And Mick grunted, "Sure, boss. Now eat your goddamn cauliflower already."

"I'm eating, I'm eating - wait. This is _cauliflower_?"

Mick smirked.

So that's how he ended up here. 

Following Thawne.

Because if he didn't, Len would do the job without the necessary intel and that could lead to trouble.

Thus far, all he'd been able to figure out was that Thawne was super into dragon science and had a seemingly endless amount of money and time to waste on his hobby.

Then Thawne goes out into the forests outside Central.

Most people would've stopped pursuit, waited for Thawne to come back out.

Mick -

Well, Mick would've done that, too, except he was daydreaming and following Thawne on automatic and next thing you know they're in the goddamn national park and Mick's hoping Thawne's not planning on staying long 'cause he could use a guide out.

He's following some hundred yards behind when he hears the scream.

Mick's no hero, let him get that straight up front. Not at all. He's a thief and an arsonist and a criminal and he loves his job.

But he's also a born and bred farm boy and when he hears something inhuman scream, he runs towards, not away.

He gets there too late to keep Thawne from spearing the big dragon, some rare type Mick's never even seen pictures of before, all red and gold scale, with a freaking _harpoon gun_ of all things, straight through the thin, vulnerable scales of the neck.

He does get there in time to keep him from doing to same to the little dragon, curled up under the big dragon's wing.

Mick does this by tackling the guy. 

He's not subtle, okay? 

But it gets the job done.

Thawne's stronger than he looks, wiry, and he manages to pull free.

And then he shoots _Mick_ with the harpoon gun, scraping a nasty line into Mick's side and just about nearly spearing him through and through.

Thawne's a rich-man criminal, poaching endangered species, that sort of thing. No doubt paid his way out of prison, assuming he was ever even questioned.

That's probably why he thinks causing Mick pain will make him stop.

It doesn't.

It just makes Mick care a whole lot less about Len's elaborate revenge plans, and a whole lot more like beating Thawne's head in, here and now.

So he leaps forward again and starts really wailing on him, till his face's gone bloody and he's starting to pass out, and Mick needs to make a call as to whether or not he wants the guy to die or not because the next few hits are going to make the difference.

Mick looks up at the big dragon, bled out in the space of a few massive heartbeats.

Then he looks at the little dragon.

"I'm gonna kill him for what he did to your mom," Mick says, because Len or no Len, that's just wrong. "You wanna stomp his head, now's your chance."

Mick's not expecting any sort of response - it's a dragon, after all, and sure, it might be _dracona draconis_ but it's still a _dragon_ \- but the little dragon uncurls and comes forward.

He's about the size of a particularly large Great Dane plus a set of wings , his head and neck slender, built for speed. Same glorious red and gold.

And then the dragon says, "For my mother," and brings his scaly feet down on Thawne's head a few times, turning it to paste.

Mick's first response was, "Good one." 

Because, well, it was. 

Followed, of course, by, "You can _talk_?!" 

"Um," the dragon says. "No?"

"You're talking right now!"

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

“Am not!”

\--

"- and then you brought him back _here_?" Len says in disbelief. 

"His mom just died," Mick points out.

Also, Len has no room to talk. He had a pet Bigeyes once, and those things are basically a cross between a rodent and a raccoon, and dumb as a rock to boot.

"Your dragon's a bit bigger than my Bigeyes was," Len says, somehow knowing what Mick's thinking as always. 

"Mom. Died."

Len groans and turns to Barry. "It's a real pleasure to make your acquaintance," he says to Barry directly. "Now what - and how much - do you eat?"

Barry blinks, long and slow. "Mick didn't tell you that I could talk," he says suspiciously.

Mick sighs. He hadn't, of course, because that seemed like it would be rude, but Len's tendency to antropormorphize everything seems to have scored another victory.

Len's slightly raised eyebrows is the only sign of surprise he gives. Instead, he sniffs and says, "Still rude not to talk to you direct. So, kid, food? Mick's a good cook, but if I'm gonna lose him to the kitchen for a few days while we figure out your living situation, I'd prefer to know now."

Barry smiles a snakey grin, just as helpless before Len's endless charisma as the rest of humanity. "Um," he says. "I don't know - maybe I could tell you what I had last week and we go from there? We're omnivores."

"Start with the basics: raw meat or cooked?"

"Cooked."

"Excellent."

Mick thought that was it, honestly. Len and Barry hit it off like a house on fire, Mick's favorite, and he figured Barry would start following Len around instead.

But no, he sticks to Mick's side, just like he's been doing the last few days.

Probably for the best, since Mick spends most of the next week in the kitchen prepping a month's worth of dragon sized meals while Len goes out and gets them half a dozen giant freezer boxes (he tells the man selling them that he's a very ambitious serial killer, because Len has a godawful sense of humor) and runs an impromptu job to get them enough cash to fill them.

It's not that bad, actually. Mick likes Barry; the kid is good conversation, not condescending at all.

He can't light fires - apparently his kind has some sort of lightning-like spit thing they can do with static electricity and some glands at the back of their throats, but that's lightning, not fire - but he's quick and his claws and tail are agile enough to help out in the kitchen.

Mick just wonders how fast he's gonna grow.

Might make keeping him a secret a bit hard.

Not to mention feeding him...

\--

"- because you've been here a month," Mick concluded lamely.

Even he has to admit that explanation sucked.

Nobody bakes a cake for knowing someone for a _month_.

Certainly not three types of cake, plus punch, all of Barry's favorite dinner dishes, and decorating the room in streamers.

Len has that no-expression face on that says he thinks Mick has gone totally off his rocker.

Barry, on the other hand, is overjoyed. "This is so awesome!" he gushes. "I mean, like, amazing! There's cake! There's food! There're _decorations_ , holy crap, _decorations_!"

Mick can't help a small smile. He'd found a box of the streamers in the closet earlier and it had given him the idea; Barry had been watching a lot of parties on the computer and TV in his quest to "learn more human stuff", god help them all, and Mick had thought it would be nice to throw him one.

He avoids Len's eyes. He doesn't want commentary about how unexpectedly and uncharacteristically thoughtful Mick's being.

Len, amazingly enough, doesn't comment.

He does take out his phone.

"What're you doing?" Mick says suspiciously.

"Calling Lisa," Len replies. "Not a party without inviting everyone."

Mick's protest of "But she's out of town -" is drowned out in Barry's excited "You're going to introduce me to your _sister_?! Really?"

"Sure," Len says. "After all, you've been here a whole _month_."

"Awesome!" Barry chirps, totally missing the sarcasm. "That's - that's really awesome. Being introduced to eggkin - uh, family, I mean - it's a really big step for dragons. We don't let anyone meet them until we're really close. S'why I was still with my mom, even though I'm all but adult - yes, I'm small, I know, but dragons don't grow until after we've reached adulthood, I swear I'm like twenty in your years - I've never met anyone's family before!"

Mick can see Len visibly softening. "Well, you'll meet mine," he says firmly. "Maybe not today, if she's not free, but soon. I promise."

Barry's tail lashes with joy.

Hitting the table.

Mick catches two of the cakes, but the lemon meringue lands right on Barry's head.

Well, that’s _almost_ where he was planning for it to go anyway.

Barry thinks it’s still great, anyway.

\--

"So you steal stuff for a living?" Barry asks from where he's curled up around Mick on the couch. "That seems cool, but the TV says it's wrong."

He's gotten bigger, more pony than dog, and he easily takes up half the couch, but any suggestion that maybe Mick should go sit somewhere else is met with absolute negation.

"Not in action movies," Len points out, smug in his separate armchair.

Len had yielded up the couch with surprisingly little fanfare, but he had insisted on robbing a furniture store then spending four hours "trying out" the chairs until he'd found the "right one".

Barry had bounced on all the mattresses until he'd found one he liked, and then begged them to get it even though they'd really been there for the chair.

Mick had just thrown up his hands and stolen a truck.

"Huh," Barry says thoughtfully. "This is true. But is life more like an educational drama or a heist-action movie?"

"Actually, it's a musical."

"It _is_?"

" _No_ ," Mick says, less in negation and more in an attempt to forestall the inevitable.

The inevitable being Len and Barry singing every goddamn song they knew, whether Disney or hip hop or the stupid dragon songs Barry taught them.

"Don't you have music in your heart, Mick?" Len asks oh-so-innocently.

"Mick has music in his heart!" Barry immediately says loyally.

Barry is very defensive of Mick. It's nice, actually; usually Mick's the one defending, not being defended. Mick grumbles and runs his hands over Barry's scales the way he likes.

"I don't know," Len says wickedly. "Maybe he should show us."

"No, Len."

"But Mick, don't you think life's a musical?"

"Oh, it's a musical all right," Mick replies. "It’s fucking _Les Miserables_."

"What's that?" Barry asks.

"...is there an off Broadway theater around here?" Len asks. "I'm not subjecting him to any of those awful movies till he's seen the stage version."

"No, Len."

"But -"

"No, Len."

"Ugh, fine."

"What musical do you think it is, Len?" Barry asks.

"Cats," Mick suggests. "Rent."

"Hunchback of Notre Dame," Len says. "Animated version."

"What? _Why_?"

"'cause it's all a story," Len says. "S'what history is: stories and old buildings that people tell stories about."

"I don't think I've seen that," Barry says before Mick can ask what old building Len thinks people are going to associate with _his_ name in the future.

Probably Iron Heights. Len’s fixing on making the most escapes from that place, the way he’s been going…

"Well, _that_ we can fix," Len says with satisfaction.

Mick sighs, but nods.

The opening chords of the movie do a good job hiding the sirens of all the cops on the loose looking for them, anyway.

\-------

"So," Barry opens the conversation as Mick stands before the stove, working on making food for the next few days.

This is a bad sign. Barry is fairly forthright, once Mick told him to knock off bothering to use tact to ease into an issue, so him starting off slow is a sign that they're going to have another one of Those Weird Humans conversations.

Hopefully it won't be as bad as the last time, the Sci Fi Logic Debacle, which is why Len is never allowed to have control of the TV remote _ever again_.

"You and Len are sleeping together, right?"

Oh god. 

It's worse.

"No, sparky, we ain't."

Barry scowls. It's very cute on his snakey face. "You were literally doing it last night!" he protests.

Mick frowns. They were definitely _not_ "doing it" last night – he and Lenny aren’t that way and have _never_ been –

Oh.

Wait.

"No, that's not - I mean - we sometimes sleep _in the same bed_ , but we're not _sleeping together_ ," Mick clarifies.

"That's not how words _work_ ,” Barry says suspiciously.

Mick groans. "Yes, it is," he says. "'Sleeping together' is a euphemism. Means sex."

"...oh." Barry thinks about this for a second. "Oh!"

"All those reality TV shows you've been binging behind my back suddenly make a lot more sense?" Mick asks, amused.

“Yeah! Suddenly all those comments about – uh. I mean, what reality TV shows?”

“We pay the electric bill, sparky. We know.”

Barry playfully covers his face with a wing in shame. “I know you guys said it’s a bad model for human behavior, but they’re so addictive…”

“At least tell me you’re mostly watching the Food Network?”

“I do like the cooking shows. Oooh, and the one with the clothing.”

Mick _really_ doesn’t want Barry learning about human behavior from Project Runway. 

“Barry…” he says.

“I’m not taking any staged depiction of human emotional conflict as a representation of what real humans do,” Barry says quickly.

“You learned that from Len,” Mick says suspiciously.

Barry nods and presses his scaly snout to Mick's side and looked up at him with those big soulful eyes the way he always did when he was feeling affectionate and/or attempting to avoid trouble because he's a little shit. 

Mick knows what he's doing, but it doesn't actually keep him from falling for it.

"Tell me what you think," he says gruffly instead, offering Barry a spoonful of the savory sauce he’s making.

Barry's long tongue laps it off the spoon. "Good," Barry says. "Maybe more salt?"

Mick tastes it himself. Yeah, bit more salt.

"You're a better kitchen helper than Len," Mick tells Barry. "He always says it's fine."

"Len just wants to eat," Barry says, because living with them for two months is enough to teach Barry all about Len's melodramatic ways. "Not his fault."

Clearly not enough time to immunize Barry to them.

"Yeah, yeah," Mick says. "Must be why he forgets to do it the rest of the time."

Barry shrugs, an extensive production involving shoulders, wings, and tail. 

The doorbell rings.

That's weird, they never get visitors to this place –

"I'll get it!" Barry announces, and dashes away before Mick can think to stop him.

Shit.

"Wait, sparky -"

It's too late.

"Holy crap!" 

It's Lisa, come on one of her unexpected visits, and she brought along her newest beau, Cisco Ramon.

A scientist.

Mick groans.

\---

"I had to tell the world," Cisco says. "It was my duty to _science_. Sorry, Barry."

"I mean, it's fine by _me_ ," Barry says worriedly. "But what'll they do to Mick?"

"They'll probably put him on the cover of Science for discovering a new dragon species, plus being the first person to domestic a true dragon - not that you're domesticated, Bar, but you know what I mean. First one to bring you home."

"That doesn't sound so bad..."

"I've got open warrants," Mick says. "They're gonna put me in jail and I won't see you again till I break out of there, and that could take ages. Not to mention leaving you in the custody of scientists like Thawne..."

"That _does_ sound bad!"

"It won't be like that!" Cisco exclaims. "Really. The scientific community will petition - surely under the _circumstances_ -"

"It'll happen," Mick says grimly. Arson convictions aren't something casually overlooked because science.

Barry looks miserably between Mick and his new friend Cisco, eventually going and curling around Mick's legs. "I'm sorry," he says. "I should've listened to you and Len."

"It's okay," Mick says, even though it isn't. "We'll deal with it. Maybe leave the country for a while..."

"No!" Cisco gasps.

\--

In the end, they both turn out right: the governor was surprisingly willing to grant a pardon in exchange for Barry agreeing to stay within state limits and get painted up as the new state dragon, and Mick still went to jail, albeit for punching a three-star general in the face instead of arson.

Even that turned out okay.

"He wanted to dissect Barry," he tells the judge after a few weeks in the can, since Len can't exactly come pay his bail. 

"Not Barry!" the judge gasps. 

In the last few weeks, Barry had become very popular in Central, especially since he'd started insisting on taking daily walks through the parks and greeting people.

Everybody wanted to meet the official new state dragon.

"Yeah, for _military use_ ," Mick says poisonously, because he's _still_ pissed about it. "Said that's all dragons are good for."

The judge doesn't actually say "the asshole deserved it" in her final ruling, but somehow the known violent arsonist gets off with probation so Mick takes it as pretty much read.

Barry, in the meantime, has made scores of new friends: Joe West, his designated police handler for public events; Joe's kids, Iris, Barry's new self-designated blogger, and Wally, informal self-appointed chauffer; Caitlin Snow, his doctor, and her husband, Ronnie; Harrison Wells, the head scientist in draconic studies in Central City; and of course Cisco and Lisa. 

And yet he keeps coming back to Mick.

"You could stay with one of them," Mick tells him reluctantly. "I know Joe offered."

"I want to stay with you," Barry says.

"Is it because you imprinted on me or something like that?" 

"No," Barry says, but doesn't explain more. "Do you want me to go?"

"No," Mick says.

"Then take Len's advice," Barry - who has grown into an insufferable know-it-all in Len's mold in Mick's absence, apparently - says. "And stop questioning it."

Well, let it never be said that Mick doesn't have a soft spot for bossy know-it-alls.

"Okay," he says. "Pizza?"

"Yes, please!"

\--

Mick refuses the interview the first four times.

He only gives in because Barry looks mildly upset and asks if it's because he's ashamed of how they met.

Mick isn't ashamed of anything, so he agrees to the interview.

"Perhaps you ought to consider being ashamed of how easily you get played," Len suggests.

"The man dating the _cop's daughter_ has no room to object."

"I'm luring her to the dark side," Len says archly. "Also: the point, you're missing it."

"What is the point?"

"That you compared your relationship with Barry to mine with Iris."

"So? We both get played when they make sad faces at us."

"Yes," Len says patiently. "And why do we do that?"

Mick frowns at him. "Because we - care about them?" he hazards. He’s not sure where Len is going with this. Is he planning on confessing that things with Iris are more serious than he’d said they were? A blind man could tell him that.

"Yes, precisely."

"I'm not getting you."

Len sighs. "Mick, if I pouted and said I'd be sad if you didn't do this interview, you'd..?"

"Laugh in your face and mock you for the rest of eternity," Mick says immediately.

"And when Barry does it?"

"Well, Barry's got that adorable snakey face going on - Len. Do not tell me you're trying to set me up _with a dragon_."

"You're pan-romantic asexual," Len says. "He's sentient. You want him around forever -"

"I want you around forever. Clearly I'm just nuts. And masochistic."

"Have fun at your and Barry's wedding," Len says sweetly in return. "Sorry, I mean _interview_."

They end up wrestling on the floor like they haven't in years.

After, though, Mick gets to thinking, so he corners Barry before the interview.

"You looking for a lady dragon?" he asks Barry. "Or a non-lady dragon?"

Barry blinks at him, wide-eyed. "Uh," he says. "No?"

"No as in 'not now' or no as in 'not ever'?"

"I - don't know. Why?"

"Len's got some stupid idea in his head about us shacking up," Mick says, because he hates secrets nearly as much as he hates matchmaking. "He'll accept it if we tell him no, but I want to get your input first."

Barry gapes. "But - but - you'd be interested?"

"I don't do sex with anybody," Mick says. "So why not a dragon? But not if you're not interested. Just say the word, it gets dropped and Len shuts up." 

With that, he waits for the inevitable rejection.

Except...

Barry scuffles the floor with his claws.

"Sparky?" Mick prompts. That doesn't get a response, so he pulls out the big guns. "Barry?"

Barry looks at him with those big round eyes. "Wow," he says. "You _mean_ it. You don't call anyone but Len by their name."

"Wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it," Mick replies, a little crossly. "It'd be rude."

He pauses, then - "So what do you say?"

"...I'd be interested," Barry squeaks.

Mick blinks.

"Oh," he says. "Uh. Good. Really? That never worked before."

Barry wraps a claw around Mick's leg. "Well, it worked this time. And you'll never need to use it again," he says firmly.

Turns out dragons are possessive. Who'd have thought?

"Now we go to the interview," Barry says.

"Fine," Mick grumbles. "But no one puts my face on the cover of anything."

\--

He ends up on the cover of Science.

Fucking dragons.


End file.
